Peoria’s $104 million agreement with Vidler Water Company gives the city access to roughly 176,000 acre-feet of long-term water storage credits—but those credits are not a new, independent source of water. City Council approved the purchase Sept. 15. The deal also includes two wells, 120 acres of former underground storage-facility land in western Arizona and a pipeline intended to connect the supply to Peoria’s system, KTAR News reported.
Stored water still has to be recovered
The credits represent Central Arizona Project water Vidler bought in the 1990s and 2000s and stored underground at a facility in La Paz County, according to KTAR. They are not groundwater, and the water remains tied to the Colorado River system Peoria is seeking to manage through the purchase. Once operational, the deal is expected to add the equivalent of 1.5 million gallons a day to the city’s portfolio, with the supply secured for 100 years, KTAR reported.
Arizona’s rules make recovery a separate step from owning credits. The Arizona House of Representatives’ summary of SB 1660 says a storer may recover water later with a recovery-well permit and by meeting requirements specific to where the water was stored. Peoria plans to use the wells and a pipeline to move water into the CAP canal; construction requires infrastructure and a federal environmental review involving the Bureau of Reclamation and the Central Arizona Project, KTAR reported.
The purchase addresses one part of a longer planning challenge
Peoria currently receives just over 34,000 acre-feet a year through CAP. City officials expect its allocation to fall by about 7,000 acre-feet next year, while water resources adviser Melinda Whittington has described a possible longer-term reduction of 14% to 20%, according to KTAR. The purchase therefore adds access to stored CAP water, but does not remove the city’s exposure to changes in Colorado River supplies.
Demand is another consideration: in a separate Sept. 16 City Council water-plan presentation, Peoria projected that water demand would double by 2052, Peoria Times reported. That projection is a long-range planning figure, not a measure of how much demand the Vidler purchase itself will meet.
The purchase was expected to close in October, but Peoria still needs the environmental review and delivery infrastructure before it can recover and use the stored water. The project’s completion timing and final infrastructure costs remain unresolved in the reported details.
